


Awareness

by Osseus



Category: The Society (TV 2019)
Genre: Boys In Love, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Sexual Frustration, The Guard (Mentioned)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-15 23:19:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19305904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Osseus/pseuds/Osseus
Summary: Sam had never really noticed Grizz before West Ham became New Ham. The world was different then and what they knew about each other was only the surface. Now Sam can't ignore Grizz, his attraction is growing too strong and now he is hyperaware of everything Grizz does.Grizz has always been conscious of Sam. Grizz has had a crush on the boy for longer than he would care to admit. Living with him has only made that more apparent. Now Grizz just has to stop himself from kissing him every time they are in the same room.A two-part series about Sam and Grizz becoming aware of each other in their new life.





	1. Awareness (Sam)

Sam had never been aware of Grizz, not in the real sense of being completely conscious of their existence within his immediate world and conversation. He has always known Grizz existed, West Ham was a small town, the high school even smaller, so Sam knew who Grizz was, or had an assumption about who he was. Grizz was a football player, he was known and recognised. He hung out with the jocks and all those who surrounded them, he wasn’t the quarterback but he was a good player. He was popular and, like most of the football players, attractive. Sam was aware of that since the recognition of his sexuality, Grizz Visser was hot.

He had soft hair and a toned body from hours of football, but Sam never really had a real crush or strong attraction to him. Sure, Sam would gossip with Becca about who the hottest player was whilst watching the football game, but it was nothing beyond passing comments about how Grizz’s pants fitted nicely as he crouched before the whistle blew. Sam’s understanding of Grizz was limited to the general high school knowledge of hierarchy and association.  
  
Grizz would hang around with the rest of the guys from the team and by extension Harry, and therefore would associate with Campbell. Sam knew Grizz existed in that world, of football, parties and girls. Before the buses came, Sam honestly assumed Grizz was a bit of player. The rest of his friends all had girlfriends, Luke had been with Helena since middle-school, Gwen and Clark were constantly attached to each others respective body parts and Jason had a few flings before he started to date Erika. But Grizz never seemed to have anything long term with anyone. Sam would see him chatting and laughing with girls, an occasional dance with the ones trying to infiltrate the football ranks through its notable single member and the odd drunken kiss in the dark corners of a house party. Sam assumed, as most did, that Grizz was enjoying the benefits of being one of the star football players of West Ham without any commitments.

High school for Sam was never really about trying to climb the social ladder, he had an incredible best friend Becca and a surrounding group of people who he would do anything for. He felt no need during school to actively attempt to befriend the people Campbell had seemed to claim as apart of his circle, people who would include him knowing that to have Campbell as your enemy was not worth the trouble. This isn’t to say Sam didn’t attend the parties Grizz did, they would pass by each other on the way to the drinks table inside whoever’s house had been accosted for a drinking location that week. But Sam never really noticed him, not beyond the external view point of going to school together.

Grizz only brought Sam’s direct attention a handful of times, like when Sam saw Grizz picking up the books of a freshmen who had fallen victim to the gravitational force that was the football team walking through the hallway.A mass of letterman jacket’s steam rolling through the cramped passageways which would only impact those closest to them, in this case the young kid with thick rimmed glasses and a StarWars graphic t-shirt. Sam was closing his locker and saw Grizz hang back as Luke and Clark continued walking, offer the younger boy a smile which crinkled one side of his nose as he apologised and placed the fallen books into the boys hand. It was a small gesture, but Sam remembered thinking that perhaps the pony-tailed jock was not as simple as he appeared.

The other time was during a presentation in English class. It was well known that the football players on the lead up towards big games were not necessarily required to put in significant effort into their schoolwork. The coach had pretty much issued a school wide warning that if any of his start player’s ability to compete was jeopardised he would be on the warpath. So it was relatively common place for the jocks to only do the bare minimum, which was literally just beaware ofthe book in question and the author, and they would pass. Sam expected as little detail as possible from Grizz, but when the boy got up there and began to animately talk about the problems and nuances of Catcher in the Rye, Sam was surprised. As Sam read his lips, he could see the passion he had for what he was saying and the detail that Grizz was invested in what he was saying and his points were way beyond the expected high school level.

Sam’s awareness of Grizz was limited to these essential points: an attractive jock who was a player but not an asshole and definitely not an idiot. This was all Sam knew and all he ever expected to know or be aware of in regard to Grizz Visser. New Ham changed all of that.

Suddenly the population of the town Sam had lived in his entire life had been reduced to his high school cohort and Sam was no longer living under a roof with his parents and brother, but in Allie and Cassandra’s house, with Becca, Gordie, Bean, Will and sometimes members of the Guard. The Guard including the one and only, Grizz Visser. Grizz who had never really been on Sam’s radar and now was so present in Sam’s immediate life that he saw him everywhere. When Sam walked down the stairs in the morning, Grizz would be there after a night of watching over Allie in his letterman jacket and sweatpants making a cup of coffee. Sam would turn into the lounge room to find Becca and see Grizz curled up asleep, hands loosely holding a book against his chest. When Sam would come back from a town meeting, Grizz would be there waiting outside the door, head turned towards the sky to watch the movement of the clouds.

Sam was suddenly hyperaware of Grizz and it was becoming obvious that what he assumed was indifference towards the jock was slowly developing into more of a fully fledged crush than Sam could have ever anticipated. When Grizz sat down to talk to him at Prom Sam was so intrigued by the boy, his small smile, the nervous tuck of the hair behind the ear and a kind of rushed determination to not embarrass Sam when he didn’t understand his speech. Sam felt a blush rise into his cheeks, Grizz was wanting to talk to him. Not just because Sam was there but Grizz actually chose to sit down with him, with his decorated pants and start conversation when he could be dancing with his friends.

Sam felt his heart twinge when Grizz asked him to teach him more sign, only a few people in his life had really attempted to learn sign beyond the essentials needed to communicate information. Becca had been the first that wasn’t his family, Allie and Cassandra had learned when they were kids at family events. A few others had picked stuff up along the way but not many had really asked Sam to teach them sign. But Grizz had and actually followed up on it. He would turn to Sam across his morning coffee, offer him a small smile and would wait for Sam to say “Good Morning” and his eyes would shift to watch as his hands moved, look up and then would mimic Sam’s sign back to him as he returned the statement. The sign was jumbled and rushed, as Grizz attempted to move as quickly as Sam’s practiced hands, but some of the words were there and they were always paired with the hopeful glint in Grizz’s eyes that he didn’t mess up or embarrass himself.

It wasn’t just the attempt of signing which made Sam realise perhaps his awareness of Grizz was not just because of the circumstance. The collapse of normal social functions meant that they all had to work together to create this new society, and no one worked harder than Grizz. The footballer was always there to offer Allie an opinion when she had no idea what to do next and asked for his input. He was always the first to offer his services to anyone who needs it, helping Gordie and Bean carry stacks of books for research out of the library to Allie’s home and pick up their favourite food when they were lost in their readings. If Luke, Jason or Clark needed a night off from their Guard duties to catch up on some sleep, or just spend a night with their girlfriends, Grizz would cover them. He was loyal, resourceful and incredibly generous and Sam was always in awe of his absolute kindness to people he cared about and even those he didn’t know.

He also went out of his way to try and give people joy. Sam had seen Becca flipping through a photography anthology which he had never seen before and when asked where she got it, herwhole face lit up when she revealed that Grizz had given it to her because he knew sheliked to take photos and the book wasn’t going to get read sitting on his mother’s bookshelf. It was such a small action, but to Samit spokevolumes. His initial assumptions about Grizz had been completely blown apart and anything which was holding Sam back from actually admitting he might actually like the guy had fallen apart.

Thats not to mention how being in close quarters with Grizz made Sam’s physical attraction to him become increasingly hard ignore. Everywhere Sam looked Grizz’s tall form was in his periphery, with his soft hair and strong arms, the combination of which making Sam both want to settle somewhere between his arms and simultaneously feel the strength of Grizz’s arms hold him down in ways way too R rated for Sam to articulate. Sam could barely ignore the voice in his head that told him he wanted to “climb Grizz like tree”, especially when he could see Grizz’s broad shoulders hunched over on the table as he chatted to Allie and could only just keep his eyes away from the curve of his ass as he did so. The boy was incredibly attractive, all justification’s Sam had given Becca about his watching of Grizz during football being out of pure boredom was now a lie. Sam’s awareness of Grizz on a physical sense was more heightened than ever and it only got worse living in Allie’s house.

After a long day of working or going through the library, Sam would be sitting at the kitchen bench, scrolling through old photos or reading into potential explanations for all the events which led up to the buses arriving, when Grizz would walk in the door. He would come in from the outside world, offer a small smile to Sam and slowly peel of his letterman jacket and hoodie which protected him from the oncoming winter. The movement itself was completely innocent, however Sam’s thoughts were far from it when a small section of Grizz’s tanned abdomen would emerge from beneath his shirt as he lifted his hoodie over his head. It would take all of Sam’s willpower not to get lost in the images which popped up of licking down the ripples of muscle and absolutely devour everything about the boy. Sam’s poor heart was not able to cope with the sudden overwhelming presence of such a sweet yet stupidly hot individual, who was slowly becoming a feature in his late night fantasies.

Sam had never been more conscious of Grizz Visser in his life and was never more aware of hisdesire to kiss him. When Grizz shifted his hands through his ever-growing hair, pulling the hair tie from his worst to tie his fringe into a knot on his head, all Sam wanted do was run his fingers through the strands and curl his hands into the back of Grizz’s neck and pull him down towards him. The questioning curve of Grizz’s lips and raised eyebrow became the fixation of Sam’s gaze in every conversation, forgetting to watch the lips of those speaking or pay attention to Becca’ssign, in favour of imagining what it would feel like to have that smile against his lips. Sam could not stop himself from imagining feeling Grizz’s finger tips against his hipbones as the boy fumbled through sign language.

Sam has become so painfully aware of Grizz Visser and there was nothing to stop it from happening.


	2. Awareness (Grizz)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grizz was always so aware of Sam. He had been crushing on the boy for years, but now he was living with him in a weird anti-universe and it is all starting to get out of hand. 
> 
> A series about Sam and Grizz becoming aware of each other in their new life and what grows because of it.

Grizz had always been aware of Sam, he had been for a long time. Since really realising he was not straight Grizz was constantly aware of Sam Eliot. Grizz at the time had desperately wished he wasn't aware of Sam, his presence was simply a reminder of all the things he didn’t want to think about himself. But still he remained hyper vigilant of Sam for as long as Grizz could remember.

Sam was the nice kid. Deaf and the younger brother of one of the most intimating teenagers Grizz had ever had the displeasure to meet. Anyone in West Ham knew who Sam Eliot was. It wasn’t as if Sam had particularly become a target either despite the fact that majority of the town, or at least the high school, was conscious of the freckled boy who would speak through the flow of his hands. In fact most people liked and respected Sam, he wasn’t incredibly popular in the high school hierarchy sense, but he was well liked. 

He never made people feel uncomfortable, despite the fact that many were conscious of their own ignorances in his presence. He was funny, Grizz knew from the barks of laughter which would emerge from the other side of the cafeteria as Becca cackled, tears in her eye whilst Sam would smile delicately at her. Grizz knew that Sam was a good person and more patient than most, Grizz would see him sit and watch any person talking and really watch them. He would give them the benefit of his attention and consideration despite the fact that most often the individual talking would not give him the courtesy of learning the most minimal sign to convey anything to him. 

Grizz also knew Sam was gay.

One year, after a long summer break that was full of sunny afternoons of messing around with a football with Luke and evenings spent huddled over an old book that was falling apart at the seams. Grizz walked into the cold halls of school and went to his locker. He was greeted with a few waves and pats on the arm from the other football players, when he noticed Sam Eliot standing by his locker down the hall. Grizz’s heart started racing faster than he ever though possible. Sam had gotten hot, not that Grizz would admit that to anybody.

Grizz had been trying his best to push down the flutters in his stomach when he would think of boys. Explain away his childhood crush on best friend Luke as nothing more than an intense friendship and connection.Grizz was not ready to deal with the fact that he was gay, that every time he kissed a girl he felt like he was living someone else's life and was hating every second. 

Grizz knew there was nothing wrong with him, he had read enough, watched enough and heard enough from the people around him and the authors he admired to know that being gay wasn’t anything to be ashamed of. Grizz wasn’t ashamed of who he was. He knew that his parents would love him if he came out to them, sure they wouldn’t really understand it but they definitely would not disown him. Grizz wasn’t in the closet because he was scared of who he was, but he was not ready for the kind of scrutiny which came with the territory of high school.

Grizz wasn’t ready to become the gay footballer. He didn’t want every relationship or friendship he had ever had to be examined with a microscope.He didn’t want to experience the awkwardness of watching his teammates turn away from him in the locker room. He wasn’t ready to have such an important part of himself put up for the debate of the entire town. Grizz was going to come out. He was going to come out after graduation, go to college and live his life authentically in a city where no one knew his entire life history. He was going to study literature and history, maybe join a theatre club. He was going to find people who understood all of him and he was maybe, just maybe, going to fall in love with some boy with sharp wit and a wicked smile. But Grizz was not going to find that in West Ham.

But West Ham had Sam, who had just gotten hot. Grizz couldn’t stop his stare. Sam had gotten rid of his braces and had grown tall enough that Grizz would be able to tuck his head right beneath his chin. Sam had gone from cute and freckled to straight up sexy. He had lost any remaining softness in his jaw to be left with strong muscle that tensed as he signed. Grizz was lost in the sight when he noticed Sam’s pink lips get pulled between his teeth in confusion to whatever Becca had said to him. If Grizz though pretending to be straight was hard before then he had no idea what he was in for when he walked in to school that morning, Sam had just pushed himself into the position as featured figure of Grizz’s dreams. Teeth pulling his lips taught Sam’s eyebrows raised in questioning and finally released he stopped biting his lip, only to slide his tongue overthe marks left on his lips. Grizz knew that he was never going to be able to get thatsight out of his mind and he was definitely going to be thinking about Sam and his lips, whether he wanted to or not, for the foreseeable future. 

Lost in his thought’s Grizz did not notice the boys who were approaching his locker, until he found himself being pulled into a sideways hug and turned to look to see Clark smiling down at him as he ruffled his hair in a semi-headlock. Jason was standing behind him grinning at the interaction and pulling Grizz away from Clark togrip him in another headlock, Grizz fighting his way out of the hold. 

The duo had started their post summer rundown of everything they had done over the break, despite the fact that Grizz had seen the pair multiple times and was present for many of the events the two were describing. Grizz laughed when Clark started to recount all of the pieces of gossip Gwen had collected and told him. Clark tended to do this at the start of the school year, run down through all the information the group had about all their classmates at this point in time,just to make sure they were all on the same page, and often to double check everything he heard with Jason, who could have potentially received conflicting information from Erika. It was a weird ritual which had started as a way to try and figure out what the year was going to be like as a whole, which jokes could be made to who and who was fucking who. Clark and Jason were some of the biggest gossip’s Grizz had ever met, but they were loyal. They never spoke about anything they had shared as friends to anyone outside of their group, but everyone else was fair game to be spoken about within the group.

Grizz had started to zone out during Clark’s itemised list of gossip, making appropriate noises of agreement or shock as the monologue continued, punctuated by confirming facts from Jason. Honestly, Grizz was ready to leave the rundown after the sixth mention of one of his classmates sex life which he never needed to know, when Clark said the words which brought Grizz’s thoughts to a halt. “Sam Eliot is gay”.

The statement was followed by a brief recall of information, Becca and Sam had been asked about what many assumed was a relationship at Lexie’s house party early in the summer, only for Becca and Sam to collapse into drunken giggles. The pair has wheezed out that they were definitely not a couple and that Sam was gay. Clark said it factually, without any prejudice which many would expect of him, he may be relatively ignorant but hateful was not in his nature. Grizz was still stuck on the admission. Sam was gay. Sam Eliot was hot and apparently playing for his team. Grizz was having a mini meltdown as the boys continued on their retelling of their knowledge. He was not alone. Sam Eliot was gay and Grizz definitely has had a crush on him for longer than he probably realised. Sam Eliot was perfect and completely dangerous for Grizz. Grizz was fucking terrified.

Grizz was aware of Sam. He knew Sam and he knew Sam was incredibly attractive. Sam was caramel innocence dusted with the right hints to sin thatmade Grizz want to hold his lips between his own teeth. He knew Sam was gay. Grizz was gay. This was something Grizz was aware of and try as he might was completely unable to get out of his head. Sam was gay. Grizz had a chance, but he wasn’t going to take it. No matter how hot Sam Eliot was, Grizz was not going to simply leave behind his plan for his life for him. Grizz could admire him from afar and then graduate, leave West Ham and never have to think about Sam Eliot again.

Getting stuck in a weird anti-universe without any adults or young children, in a place which looks like your hometown but stranded beneath the wrong constellations and amongst dense forest had a tendency to disrupt one’s initial life plans. Grizz was caught in this world which looked so like what he had come to know as home, but now he was stuck there. There was no college to go to, no new people to meet and no future loves to find. New Ham was a place completely different to anything Grizz had experienced before and it was terrifying. Grizz was a guy who knew how to survive, he had been to enough scout hikes as a kid and gone on enough camping trips to know how to live without the comforts of the 21st Century. But being stuck in this place was still terrifying.

Grizz wasn’t the kind of person to panic, he was the type to sit and think, deliberate and then act accordingly. Realising he was now stuck in a universe where he was never going to be able to avoid Sam Eliot, almost threw him into a tailspin. There was no avoiding this boy, who’s hands made Grizz want to throw away every concern he ever had and push the boy into the closest wall to feel the tension in his jaw, to hear moans slip out of his lips. Sam Eliot was now a permanent feature in Grizz’s life. Grizz was both absolutely ecstatic about this fact and completely petrified. He was never going to be able to ignorehis attraction to the boy forever and he certainly did notwant to stay in the closet for the rest fo his life. 

The anti-universe had a lot of negatives and potential’s for complete disaster. Grizz suddenly being unable to ignore his deep obsession with Sam Eliot was definitely in the disaster category. Grizz was now occasionally living in close quarters with the boy he had been crushing on and he was loosing his absolute mind. Sure, Grizz pre-occupied himself with his duties as a part of the Guard, drinking with his friends and being apart of the weirdest prom committee which ever existed. But Grizz was also spending increasing amounts of time near Sam and he had no idea how to deal with it.

Naturally, drunk Grizz seemed to take the initial leap into the potential disaster that was talking to Sam at prom. Grizz wanted the earth to swallow him whole when his own panicked internal monologue of “Don’t fuck this up Grizz, please don’t fuck this up” made him completely miss the first thing Sam had ever really said to him. Grizz was sure that this was going to promptly end his life. He would die without ever admitting he was gay and that would be okay because at last he would never have to truly face the embarrassment of royally fucking up talking to his crush. But Sam was sweet and patient and laughed at Grizz’s attempt to lessen the awkwardness, his face split into the widest smile, eyebrows crunching in amusement as Grizz crossed his arms over his body to sign the only word he knew, “Bullshit”. 

The deepnessof Sam’s laugh and sparkle in his eye, had Grizz on a high he had neverexperienced before. He was literallysoaring abovethe heads of every drunk teenager in NewHam, because Sam Eliot had smiled at him. Sam Eliot, the hot gay freckled boy of Grizz’s dreams thought he was mildly amusing. That was really the end of Grizz’s ability to ignore his awareness of Sam.

Every moment after that Sam was constantly in Grizz’s vision, whether Grizz was walking to the church, going to the garden or simply making a cup of coffee, Sam was there. The proximity of the boy was something of a problem for Grizz, as he slowly attempted to build a kind of friendship with him, trying to pick up sign or doing menial tasks to make life in the anti-universe slightly less weird. 

Sam was just so goddamn close al the time. Grizz would see him and Becca sign to each other for hours over Allie’s dining room table from his post at the door, desperately wanting to join the pair and terrified of someone noticing how his eyes would drift over to Sam every time they were in the same room. Sam seemed to always be around the house when Grizz was there, reading through the various papers collected from the town hall, discussing potential plans with Gordie and Bean and teasing Becca from across the room, his smirk being the only indication of his jokes, his hands moved far to quickly for Grizz to even attempt to decipher. Sam’s presence itself wasn’t a problem, in fact Grizz enjoyed it and had picked up a copy of the BSL handbook he had found in the library so he could spend more time with Sam and actually talk to himin his language.

No, the problem with Sam being so present in Grizz’s new life in New Ham, was that Grizz could hardly stop thinking about the boy. Especially at night, where Grizz’s vision would swim with images of Sam. Some of these images were innocent, the two of them sitting side by side in the grass of the football field, hands twisted together as the sun fell beneath the trees. Other images were less innocent. Particularly flashes of Sam’s hands pulling him down by the collar to presstheir lips together and then another flash of those hands wrapped around Grizz’s headboard, secured by the handcuffs Grizz kept beside his bed. This flashes are always accompanied by the low groan Grizz could only imagine would fill the air as Grizz would slip his hands to dance across the freckles of Sam’s stomach whilst he worked his way down Sam’s throat leaving purple marks as memories bruised in his flesh. 

The visions were both keeping Grizz awake till all hours as he would get caught up in his fantasy and find himself incredibly turned on, alone in an empty bed. Grizz was so conscious of Sam in every way possible. Sam was everything Grizz wanted, he was kidding himself when he thought he was going to be able to leave this place and forget about the boy. There was no forgetting Sam Eliot, he was the flicker of hope in the impending shadow of their new reality. Grizz was not going to simply let the boy fade from his life, not when Grizz had only just gotten close to grasping the thing he had always wanted deep down.

Sam has always been in Grizz’s life and he was not going anywhere soon, Grizz just hoped that he wasn’t going to fuck it up beforehe even got the chance to tell the boy how he felt and show him how much Grizz noticed him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thankyou so much for reading! You guys asked for it so here it is - Grizz's POV!  
> I initially intended for this just to be a two-part work, but if you are wanting more or feeling I could go somewhere different or interesting with it - let me know!
> 
> Feel free to send me requests or anything like that - I am always looking for new ideas :) 
> 
> Leave a comment if you have any feedback!
> 
> UPDATE: 
> 
> Hey guys! Thankyou for all your feedback, I have decided to keep this series as its original 2 parts - But don't stress I will be writing more so keep an eye out :)

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic in this fandom! Let me know if you want me to write more and if there is anything you would like me to write. 
> 
> Thankyou for reading!


End file.
